DOVETAIL DIARIES ✔

Chapter Forty Two

From the diary of Leo Harwood

Dear Diary,

We’re not back home yet and it’s two days since the gig. I’m looking back over the last few days. I’m seeing the memories but the guy in them, I swear it’s not me – it’s a sad, mad puppet. Could I have done what I did?

After Amber left me on the rooftop at the hospital all I could think was – stop her. She didn’t know her way around, it was god knows what time in the morning and she was wearing the same dress she had worn so beautifully on the stage that night – except it was covered in blood.

Yet I’ve never seen her move so fast once I told her it was Marilyn who thought up the plan; she disappeared in an instant. I didn’t have time to remind her it was me that agreed to the plan, that it was me who was desperate enough to carry it out.

The door on the rooftop slammed shut and I ran towards it, throwing myself through it only to hear Amber’s footsteps already speeding along at least two flights below. I called to her but there was no answer – I just saw fleeting glances of her as she wound her way down the stairs.

I began to run too, leaping down three or four steps at a time. The stairwell reverberated with the sound of both our footsteps. Somehow hers were faster than mine, more urgent.

I heard her on the bottom flight and I was still on the third. I called out her name but there was no answer. Just the sound of her feet stamping along the corridor and then the slam of a door as it shut. I continued to run down to the bottom floor. I flew out straight into the waiting room.

It was full of people everywhere sitting, standing, walking, running. I scanned the whole place. I couldn’t see her. I went to the reception and found a large woman with thick glasses.

‘Did you see a girl, a bit shorter then me?’ I said.

She looked back at me, blank.

‘No, sorry’ she said with a New York drawl.

‘Please, you must’ve seen her. She just came through here. She’s got blondey brown hair. Long,’ I said.

‘Aw, yeah,’ the woman said, pointing with her pencil. ‘Real cute girl, kinda troubled looking?’

‘Yes!’ I said.

‘I think she went that way,’ she said, pointing to the corridor where we had left Farley.

Maybe she had gone to check on him before she left.

‘Thanks,’ I said to the woman as I sprinted off.

‘Sure,’ she said.

I headed down the corridor but Amber was nowhere to be seen. As I reached the same double doors Farley had gone through my stomach flipped at the thought of him in there.

‘Were you with the young man who came in earlier, Farley Heyes?’ said a voice from behind me.

I turned around.

‘Er, yes,’ I said.

It was a doctor, the same one as before.

‘Ah ha,’ he said. ‘Young Farley is out of emergency surgery now. It was much quicker than we thought.’

‘Oh, wow,’ I said. ‘That’s good. I guess?’

‘He sustained some pretty serious injuries. He’s a tough boy though, we’ll see,’ he said.

‘Well, is he alright?’ I said.

‘He’s still critical. The next twenty-four hours are key,’ he said.